Water for Elephants

I'm reading "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen. I wish I were at home curled up with it right now.

 

I had a wonderful Friday with Park Bench. We went to Salinas and shopped at Savers. Miraculously I came home empty handed, but totally happy. I am in a shedding rather than collecting phase. We had a wonderful dinner at our favorite little taqueria Dos Gallos.

 

Saturday we went on a walk though town, had breakfast at Belle and then visited Anthropologie. I LOVE that store. It makes me want to sell out and become a CEO for some evil company just so that I can aford to buy everything in the store. I love the colors, the embelishments, the ruffles, the tucks, the extra embroidery...

 

Sewing room: I need you.

October

June and October are my favorite months. Outside right now the air is warm and soft and the wind is whipping around the leaves. Everything seems brilliant, orange, and exciting. It feels like the sun is always about to set, even at mid-day.

 

The quality of the light is so different now. It feels like a movie.

 

I love it.

 

I tried something new out last night with the pastry chef. I attempted full truth. Maybe it was partially inspired by the movie I saw on Wednesday, "The Invention of Lying" (you can miss it... cool concept, boring movie) or maybe I am just so comfortable in my relationship that I thought, what the hell.... I'll give this one a whirl.

 

Instead of telling the BEST version of a story about my past, I told the real honest truth. An honesty I would only share normally with my best of friends, and never EVER with a boyfriend. It goes against the dream girl ethic.

 

He laughed.

 

He didn't drop me off at Jack N' a Box and tell me he never wanted to see me again. It was a minor success, and I might try it more often. I've been such a Secretive Sally all my life, and I don't really know why. I can't remember where I learned that lying was better than the truth....

 

So yes. Its fall. The air feels romantic. I bought a bottle of Torbereck Shiraz to drink this weekend. Sarah is spending the night with me tonight. I'm reading Sara Gruen's "Water for Elephants" and I have a pile of trashy magazines to keep me company for the rest of the weekend.

 

My move list:

 

SLO, Hollywood, Oregon, Philadelphia.... somewhere warm and tropical...

 

 

Me drinking an UP! indian cola in March 2008 in Cary, North Carolina.

Cary was a place, prior to the afternoon this photo was taken, that I had only seen on Craig's List. In ads for apartments for rent everyone failed to mentioned the amazing Indian grocers, the shops full of bangels... (just another manic monday) or the Indian theatre that sold chai and samosas.... mmmmmm...... There is nothing quite like having hot chai during the intermission of a bollywood movie.

It is now October of 2009. I am a few thousand miles from Cary. At home in Carmel, California. This place is the opposite of exotic. Johnny B. Goode and Archie Carmel have never heard of UP! cola. Or maybe they have.... maybe in 1999 their rich mother got a divorce and spent a year in an ashram finding herself. Maybe she brought them home one....

I'm such a bitch

It's getting late, and I should be sleeping, but I'm bored. I've been traipsing down memory lane... looking at pictures of all the places I've been and wondering where I'll go next.

Maybe it's time to set a date. Time to get serious about the next place...

Karianne is coming to visit next week. We're going to a wedding near Yosemite and then spending two days lollygagging around here. I can't WAIT to see her. I can't wait to go to the beach and collect seashells and stay up late talking about everything and nothing.

I remember the first time I saw this building, the beloved "old well." It was bitter cold, a quiet steely January cold I'd never experienced before. Lacey and I had taken a bus across town and relied on strangers and a few vague maps to get us there. Campus was empty, my interview was short. We wandered around, crunching leaves, Lacey pointing out things that looked fun to try and cheer me up about my new life.

All of the hours of Internet stalking I had done had turned up an unequal amount of this dripping with gravy version of Chapel Hill. In all of the UNC literature this little white arched gazebo had been prominently featured. I really had no idea what it actually was, only that there was something sort of Monticello about it. Maybe some great civil war general had sat in its shade and decided the tactic he would employ for some fate changing battle.

It screamed old and southern to my California palm fringed eyes.

Now when I look at it I laugh inside. North Carolina was this imaginary destination, and now its a landmark in my past.

I need a new North Carolina.

Haiku Project

My friend Jeanne and I were emailing the other day and came up with the idea of writing little poems about our relationships. She sent me a fabulous set of poems that made me laugh. This morning I cafted this little list and sent it to her.

 

You were the first person
To say I was beautiful
You had one blind eye
 
A man of few words
Built a house overlooking
A dream I once had
 
Jewish Vagina!
A chef, son of a rabbi
Please dont pee on me
 
Through a glass window
Love barefoot in the green grass
Now I walk in shoes
 
Baseball baby boy…
A Peter Pan of Oakland
Left you for Big Sur
 
Southern and blue eyed
Pitbull with a penchant for
Sex whiskey and me
 
Patty cake baker
Wannabe baby maker
Sugar Butter Salt

This weekend I took care of my friend Arianna's kitten. Her name is Olivia and she is absolutely wonderful. There is nothing quite like kitten love to cure what ails you. Park Bench, a tried and true friend, stayed with me and put up with my up and down distracted erratic emotional state all weekend. She deserves a thousand gold stars.
I suffer from an inability to separate myself from my emotions, and this weekend I had stones around my ankles. We went to see the former lead singer of Pavement, to a BBQ, to Deetjens, to Sierra Mar, and to the Bakery, but all the while I was distracted. I have all these dreams and desires but no idea how to achieve them. I have a boyfriend who has his own life and his own challenges and I can't seem to wrap my mind around the idea of combining our lives. Right now I feel consumed by trying to solve the riddle. ugghhh. I need a next step. I know it isn't the end of the world. I just want to do the right thing. I want to make the right choices.

I really really really want a washer and dryer. I want a goat more, but the number two on my wish list is definately a washer and dryer. sigh....

I pictured being 30 so different. I imagined having a mortgage. I distinctly remember saying that if I didnt have a little one, I would most definitely treat myself to a maid. Maybe even a topless one. No, quite honestly I am having spoiled brat pangs of jealousy, want, and desire. I am over the laundromat. I am over the dollhouse. I mean OVER it.

Park Bench sent me a postcard today from her trip across the country. This is a sketch of an old photo she made of my mom and me. so neat.... as i remember seeing that picture somewhere a long time ago.

Babies

Can I be tired of commenting on people's cute baby pictures on facebook?

Dear Miss Coco,

Thank you for the wonderful gifts you leave me. Living with your brand generosity has taught me a lot about love, and about locking those you love out of the house.

The only reason I let you back in is because I fear you will be murdered by one of the grizzly racoons in the neighbborhood and I can't live with that kind of guilt.

I think you are vile and disgusting, but your green eyes and petite mew make me momentarily forget. I want to be really clear about one thing: I let you sleep on the bed, not becuase I like you, but becuase I am 30 and I live alone.

I know that you ate the rest of ol' Nickademus there, so I resent the way you stared at me and mewed as though you are starving .

I'll buy wet food more often if that's going to be what it takes.

xxxxxx

me